Archive of Our Own

The road to recovery for Bucky is pocked with holes and littered with stones. Within the walls of Stark Tower Steve spends all the free time he can find, determined to see his old friend through it. The first three days the former Winter Soldier spent in the tower were spent sleeping. Whatever drug Banner had dosed him with when he’d attacked Steve in a fit of panic had yet to wear off, and it was worrying Steve. Bruce stops by every three hours, checking the heart monitor stuck to Bucky’s chest, the IV bag of nutrients for the body, and various other medical things that Steve can’t even begin to comprehend. By the middle of the third day, Steve has had enough. “Forgive me for sounding a bit ungrateful,” Steve starts, watching Bruce closely as he makes a note on Bucky’s file. “But what in the hell did you give him? He’s been out cold since I brought him here. And honestly, I’m starting to think he isn’t going to come to.”

Bruce gives Steve a small smile, and dials down something on a monitor. “Etorphine.” Bruce says simply. “It’s a type of tranquilizer. After seeing the footage of the two of you duking it out like that, I assumed he’s got a similar version of the serum that Erskine gave you in the 40’s. And knowing the way you metabolize drugs, the only thing strong enough to take you down for even a fraction of time would be etorphine. So I gave it a try. The most it would do to him if it didn’t have the desired affect would have been nothing at all.”

“Isn’t that the stuff that guy in that tv show uses? Dexter, or something?” Steve asks. Natasha had been fascinated with the show, and had made him watch every season over the course of a week. Steve had to admit, the thought of a serial killer, who only targeted wrong-doers was an interesting concept. 

Bruce laughs softly and nods. “It is. Normally, this stuff can kill a person, but like I said, you both break drugs down so quickly, that the dose I gave him was only enough to knock him out long enough to get him secured. The rest of the time he’s been asleep is all his own doing. His body is likely in serious need of recharging. Don’t worry Cap, James is just fine.” Bruce pats him on the shoulder and leaves the room.

Steve isn’t quite so sure. Bucky’s eyes dart back and forth under closed lids, and sometimes his breathing picks up to near hyperventilation. From time to time a fine sheen of sweat coats his face and neck and flesh-and-bone arm, making the white cotton t-shirt the pretty nurse put him in stick to his skin. But he doesn’t wake up, and Steve still feels like something is seriously wrong.

Natasha comes to visit every night before she leaves for home, to see if Steve is going too. But Steve can’t leave. He lost Bucky once, and he’d be damned into the darkest circle of hell before he left again. She looks a little miffed when he refuses to go with her, but she doesn’t hold it against him, just brings him a fresh change of clothes in the morning and a hot cup of coffee. 

It takes three more days before Bucky finally comes to. Steve is sitting in his usual space, a rigid and uncomfortable chair in the corner of the private room Stark had given Bucky in the tower. He’s sketching away when the slumbering man wakes with a start, throwing himself into a sitting position, gasping for air. “Hey, hey. Calm down, Buck. It’s all right.” Steve is saying as he gets to his feet and dashes across the room. A metal hand connects with his jaw and Steve stumbles back. Bucky is ripping at the monitor sensors taped to his chest, ashy grey-blue eyes wild and scared. He’s spitting something in Russian that Steve can’t understand, and Steve feels powerless to help quell the fear and agitation boiling over in his friend. “It’s ok! You’re safe here. You’re at Stark Tower, remember? Think Buck, you’re ok.” 

Several minutes pass with Bucky sitting up in his bed, eyes dancing around the room, taking in the sights around him. When he’s seen everything, he looks back to Steve. “How long?” He asks, his voice broken and rough from days spent in disuse. 

“Almost a week. You’ve been asleep since I bought you here the night you broke into my apartment. Do you remember that?” He asks. Bucky nods once, and Steve pulls his chair towards the bed and sits down again. His jaw is a little tender were metal connected with it, but it’s nothing he can’t shake off in a minute. “What else can you remember?”

Bucky leans back against his pillows, eyes still darting around the dimly lit room, saying nothing. 

Steve sighs. He knows Banner will be along in the next little while, so he sits in silence with Bucky, waiting for him to want to talk. 

But Bucky doesn’t seem to keen on talking. The most anyone earns is a muttered word or two at a time, maybe a sentence in harsh Russian that no one other than Natasha and JARVIS seem to understand. Steve knows that Bucky is petrified. From what he gathered from the file Natasha had given him months ago, Hydra never kept him awake for very long between missions, and every time they’d wake him, they’d wipe his memory clean and induce a state of amnesia to make the Soldier complacent. The way Bruce explained it, now that Bucky was left to his own devices, his memory should start to regenerate, starting with the newest memories he’d made. If they were lucky, and the old ones weren’t too damaged, they would eventually come back too. But for all the tests that Bruce had been able to preform while Bucky was out, he couldn’t figure out how much damage had been done to his brain by Hydra. 

Steve wasn’t going to give up any hope though. Bucky was tough, he’d get better, he’d come back. If he could survive for nearly six months in the streets, he could work through the haze that was his own mind. And Steve was more than willing to help in any way he could.

He continues to spend every ounce of free time he has at Stark Tower, keeping close in case Bucky needed him, but it becomes apparent early on that Bucky doesn’t. Steve does his best to not take the silence personally, but it gets to him. They used to have so much to talk about. He knew that things were vastly different now, and that it was likely never going to be the same ever again. Even so, he wanted to be there for his friend. 

Steve is sitting on the couch in the ward Bucky stays in, in the medical wing of the tower, watching television while his friend is undergoing an examination with Bruce, flipping through the channels idly. “Ever consider going home?” Bruce’s voice asks as he exits Bucky’s room, closing the door quietly behind him. “You look like hell, Steve. You feeling ok?”

“Just worried about him, is all.” Steve confesses, shutting the television off. 

Bruce takes a seat beside Steve and looks over his shoulder at the room he just came out of. “He’s doing as well as he can be, considering everything he’s been through. Things are coming back to him.” He watches Steve closely. “Go home, get some rest, spend some time with Natasha. We’re monitoring James closely, so if anything changes at all, I’ll be sure to let you know.” 

He is tired. He hasn’t slept much since bringing Bucky here, too concerned with the wellbeing of his friend to realize how worn his body feels. As if on cue, Steve yawns and Bruce just gives him a knowing smile. “Ok fine. I’ll go.” Steve says as he stands up. “But if anything at all comes up —“ 

“Relax, Steve. James is safe here. Me and the other guy will keep a good eye on him.”

Steve grabs his jacket from the back of the couch and leaves the ward to find Natasha. “Jarvis?” Steve calls as he steps into the elevator. 

"Yes Captain?” Tony’s AI replies, just as pleasant as ever. 

“Is Natasha in the building still?”

“Agent Romanov is currently in the workshop with Mr. Stark, sir. Shall I take you to them?”

Steve nods and the elevator begins to move. He felt awful for ignoring Natasha the past few weeks, but he needed to make sure that Bucky was safe, that he was ok. Natasha seemed to understand his absence, and Steve hoped that this whole thing wouldn’t put a damper on whatever it was they had going. 

Truthfully, he still wasn’t even sure where they were. He always cared about her, and had only begun to feel more in the weeks since she’d taken him to get his tattoo, the night she’d first spent with him. Steve had hated himself at first for not keeping himself under control, for not keeping his hormones in check when he probably should have. But when it happened again a few nights later, Steve soon found himself regretting not picking up her hints sooner. Now though, after several months of sleeping with the redhead, he was no more sure of what she was looking for. And the subject was not one Steve knew how to bring up. 

He was sure that he wanted something a little more solid, perhaps an official title. Going Steady, or whatever couples called it these days. He’d never had the opportunity to know what having a girlfriend was like back before the war, women always overlooking him for Bucky instead. Then again, Steve had been a scrawny little thing with a whole host of medical issues. It was no shock that dames had gone for the tall, strapping figure of James Barnes, with his thick dark hair and cocky grin. After the Serum, Steve had spent more time overseas and behind enemy lines to consider dating. Peggy Carter was the closest thing he’d had to a girlfriend back then, and even that ended with one single kiss and a promise of a real date just before he’d crashed that aircraft and gone under. 

But now, there was a woman in his life that wanted him. A woman who was everything Steve had looked for in a woman back then; quick witted, smart, pretty. One hell of a kisser, too. He was more than happy with being seen with Natasha on his arm in public, and she didn’t seem to mind showing him off either. But the question still remains in Steve’s mind; was she his girlfriend, or not?

The elevator doors slide open and Steve’s ears are met with a loud cacophony of noise that Stark likes to call music. The guitars a heavily distorted and the singers voice has a rough rasp to it that Steve can’t seem to get his head around. But Tony is nodding his head to the beat as he tinkers with one of his 3D projections that hovers over a large table in the middle of the room. Steve takes a minute to clue in that the model being projected is one of Bucky’s mechanical arm. 

Natasha leans against the table with her palms, squinting at the model as Stark rotates it, taps on it and the thing blows apart to expose all the components. “I’m thinking that if I can get him to agree to it,” Stark is saying when Steve is close enough to hear over the music. “I could take the arm and wire it for sensation. If not throughout the entire thing, at least in the hand. I mean, it would be more than beneficial to him in the field, if he goes back into it.”

“I highly doubt he’s going to let you take his fucking arm from him.” Natasha laughs, as she watches Tony string a series of tiny wire-looking holograms through the model of the arm. “He won’t let anyone touch it, period. You’re lucky Barnes let you close enough to scan the damn thing.” 

Steve looks at the hologram as Tony does a few other adjustments. “Yeah, I’m positive that you can forget the idea of adding sensors to it.” Steve says.

Tony gives Steve a wry grin and shrugs. “I can just build him a better one, then.” 

“I think the better question here,” Natasha says, looking at the hologram closer. “Is how would you wire the sensors to the nerves? Better question again; are there even any nerve endings they can be connected to that haven’t been too damaged by the way Hydra attached the arm?”

The older man pauses, one arm folded across his chest, the other resting against it while supporting his chin in his palm. “Valid point, Romanov.” Tony says. “We can always get Bruce and his team to look into it. Meanwhile I’ll just fix up what he has until we figure out what we’re working with.”

Natasha smiles across the table at Steve and moves around it to where he stands and slides an arm around his waist. “So you finally decided to leave the med ward, huh?” She says with a flirty little smile 

Steve just shrugs. “Bruce is gonna sick the other guy on me if I don’t go and get some rest.” Steve replies dryly, and Natasha laughs. Tony has gone back to his work, muttering under his breath, not paying much attention to either of them, so Steve presses a soft kiss to her cheek. Natasha’s lips quirk into a little smile. “You wanna come back to my place for a while? Get some take-out and finish watching those Disney movies you brought over?”

“Sure thing, Cap.” Steve leads her to the garage where he’s parked his bike and passes her his spare helmet that he keeps locked in one of the saddlebags. She takes it and arches an eyebrow. “We could just take me car?” She suggests. 

“Humour me.” He replies, fastening his own helmet on his head. Natasha shrugs and puts the closed faced helmet on her head, fastening the strap under her chin as Steve throws a leg over his motorcycle, rocking it back off the kickstand. She straddles the backseat, and slides in close to him, wrapping both her arms around his waist as he starts the motor and drives out of the parking garage.

Her arms tighten around him as they hit the highway, the wind rushing around them. Steve always preferred bikes to cars, liking the openness of it. There was even something about a convertible that he likes considerably less than driving a bike. Not to mention he loves the way Natasha presses against him, her hands pressing flat to his chest as they speed up. 

They make it back to the apartment as the sun is going down, lighting the living room in a soft orange glow. Steve watches as Natasha peels her jacket off and tosses it casually into one of the chairs flanking the couch, and lays her helmet on the coffee table. The way the light illuminates her makes Steve’s hands itch for pencil and paper to capture the moment as it is now. Her hair seems to glow, and her features are hidden in mostly shadow, only her lips and cheekbones highlighted so perfectly it was ridiculous. He crosses the room in three steps and wraps his arms around her, hers slide around his neck. Their lips find one another and melt into one, just like she’d done the first time around. 

“Thought you said you were going to get some rest?” Natasha chuckles, her hands already hoisting his shirt over his head. Steve just shrugs and pushes her back towards the couch. He sits and hauls her into his lap, her thighs straddling his as they kiss roughly. 

The sun is down and the moon high in the sky a few hours later while Steve watches television, Natasha napping quietly on his chest. He’d pulled the thick quilt from the back of the couch over their naked, still sweaty bodies after they had finished, and she’d fallen asleep rather promptly. He wasn’t too concerned though, at least she was staying. Steve stares blankly at the TV, not caring much about what’s on it. He wants to go back to the tower to check on Bucky, to make sure his friend is doing all right. 

Theres a strange feeling in the core of his heart, and he hardly knows how to begin to explain it. Ever since Bucky had lost his mask that day on the bridge, and Steve had seen him there, alive and mostly alright, part of him that Steve thought he’d lost years ago flickered back into existence. He felt whole again, just knowing Bucky was alive. Then, to see his friend in his apartment, sitting on this couch that night several weeks ago, asking for help was a weight off his shoulders. But now, not to be near him ripped at Steve like nothing else could. It was hard to breathe, not being within earshot of his friend. He hated not knowing what Bucky was doing, if he was asleep, if he was awake. What if Steve wasn’t there when Bucky needed him.

Steve slides out from under Natasha’s arm and hauls his jeans back on before heading up the stairs to his bedroom. He finds a suitcase in his closet and begins to throw some clothing into it, working methodically in the silence. Stark had already offered a floor to each of The Avengers since the battle of New York, and until now, Steve had no reason to take Tony up on his offer. But Bucky was there now, and if moving into the building meant being closer to his friend, Steve was going to do it. Barton had already adopted his floor, and Thor took one of his own for the times when he’d visit from Asgard. Natasha held a place of her own there too, saying it was cheaper than the loft she’d been renting beforehand. 

“What are you doing?” Natasha asks, startling Steve from his trance. He looks over his shoulder to see her dressed in his shirt and her purple, silk-and-lace panties. Her hair is sleep mused and her make-up is smudged. Steve can’t help but smile at the sight. She’s stunning even when she first wakes up. 

“Taking Tony’s offer.” He replies, adding a handful of shirts to the suitcase. 

Natasha eyes him as she leans against the doorframe, arms crossed over her chest. “Really?” She asks. “You’re only going to worm your way out from under Fury’s thumb now because —”

Steve shrugs, cutting her off mid sentence. “This place doesn’t feel… homey.” He says, nodding towards the mirror attached to his dresser. Stuck inside the intricately carved frame was a tiny camera, one of several Steve had found in the days after S.H.I.E.L.D had put him up here to protect him from the threat that was The Winter Soldier. He puts his back to the mirror and drops his voice so it won’t be picked up by the bugged telephone that sits beside his bed. “Shh.” He says, finger to his lips. “Fury has had this place wired since day one, if I bring Bucky back here after Bruce gives him the all clear, Fury is going to be on him in an instant. The fact we’ve gone so long without him finding Bucky is a damn miracle.” He explains in a hushed whisper. “If I want to keep him safe until he’s ready to be on his own, I can’t bring him here.”

The woman purses her lips as she looks around the room. “Good point.” She says as she spots the camera. She feints a smile and slips her arms around his waist. “I’m so glad you finally agreed to come to Portugal with me.” She says with a sigh. “It’s about time we took a vacation.”

He catches her drift and places a kiss to her lips, his hands resting on the curve of her waist. “Well, we leave in a few hours, and I need to finish packing.” After a series of several more kisses, Natasha breaks free of his arms and saunters across the hall to the bathroom to take a shower, leaving Steve to finish gathering what possessions he deems essential from the apartment. Everything else he can easily replace within the next couple days. Clothing, his stack of sketchbooks, two sets of dog tags that reside in a worn velvet box tucked inside his nightstand; one belonging to himself, the other belonging to Bucky. 

The following morning, Steve leads Natasha from the apartment by the hand, his suitcase in the other. The car at the end of the street Steve knows, it belongs to the guards Fury hired to monitor the apartment when The Winter Soldier was said to still be after him. He nods at the two agents inside, who both nod back as Steve lead Natasha to where he parks his own car. He knows they probably have a tracking device implanted in it somewhere, and a bug tapped into the car’s intelligence system. “I guess we’ll go back to Stark Tower so you can grab your bags, and get one of Tony’s guys to take us to the airport. You don’t think he’d mind housing my car for a few weeks, huh?”

Natasha laughs playfully. “I doubt he’d even know the difference.” She replies as they drive away. They say nothing more for the rest of the ride, until they’re safe and sound back in Natasha’s quarters within the tower. “Jarvis, were we followed?” She asks.

“I am not detecting any unauthorized presences’s within the tower, or the surrounding grounds.” JARVIS replies. “There is, however, several tracking devices attacked to Captain Roger’s vehicle. I’ll send a tech to disarm them immediately.” 

“Thank you, Jarvis.” Steve says. “Can you please tell Tony I’m waiting for him in the common room?”

“Certainly, sir.”

Steve sighs, and drags a hand through his hair, before heading up to the Avengers quarters. It was a spacious room consisting of a huge kitchen and a living area. Fancy black leather couches sit around a massive television, and several old arcade games line one wall. A large round table takes up the majority of the kitchens free space, and it’s shockingly clean for a change. Most of the floors that Tony gave to the Avengers team have its own kitchen, but the team often eats breakfast together when time permits. And when they do, the common kitchen is often a complete state, and it drives Steve crazy. 

He’s just turning on the coffee pot when Tony saunters in. “Whatcha need, Cap?” He asks, hopping up onto one of the counters. Tony look him over quickly and arches an eyebrow. “You look stressed. Careful Cap, don’t want to put too much on the old heart there. Old men like you don’t deal with stress too well.” 

“Your offer of a floor here still standing?” Steve asks, ignoring the jape. 

Tony cocks his head curiously. “Well, considering I had the decorators already deck one out in all red-white-and-blue for our favourite patriotic super-soldier, of course it is.” 

Steve groans. “I’m being serious, Stark. Fury is monitoring my place and I need to get out of there before Bruce gives me the ok to take Bucky from the medical ward.”

Starks expression turns serious then. “I see.” He says. “Yeah, Pepper made sure we reserved a place for all you guys just in case something like this came up. Yours is level twenty-four.”

Despite their rocky start, Steve often considered Tony a friend nowadays. He wasn’t too keen on the way he tended to poke fun of Steve’s age, or his amusement at modern technology, but over all, Stark was a good guy. Steve had been wrong in assuming that Tony was only in it for himself… Well, partly wrong. The man was still a billionaire who never hesitated to drop a massive amount of money on anything his heart desired, but he took care of his family and friends. Steve respected him for that. “Thank you, Tony. I mean it.”

“Don’t mention it, Cap.” Tony says with a grin. “Besides, Clint likes having you around. He doesn’t much appreciate my cooking.” Tony hops off the counter and makes his way back to the elevator. “If you need anything, Jarvis is here to help. Catch you later!”

Steve stands alone in common room for a minute after Tony disappears back to whatever project he’s working on, and heaves a sigh. Feeling the need to check up on Bucky, Steve makes his way back to the medical ward. His friend sitting on the floor in scrub pants and a clean white t-shirt with his legs crossed. The area around Bucky is littered with documents and old newspaper clippings, which Steve deduces are from the filing boxes stacked to Bucky’s right. His too long hair is tied back in a messy knot at the back of his head, and his cheeks are still coated in stubble. His brow is furrowed as he squints at the pages of another file, lines creasing around his eyes that Steve doesn’t remember being there back in the war. 

Bruce is sitting near by in an armchair, keeping a close eye on Bucky from the chair in the corner as he takes notes. “What in the hell did I miss?” Steve asks the doctor. 

“He asked to see whatever information on him we could find, dating back as far as possible.” Bruce explains. “I think it might help him in the long run. He had a particularly intense recall last night after you left, several memories came back at once and it hit him hard. Hasn’t said two words since we gave him the files.” Steve stares down at him with an intense gaze and Bruce huffs. “He’s fine, Steve. He just wants to see the things he’s done for himself. If it unlocks something than it does. If it doesn’t, than at least we tried.”

Steve’s eyes turn back to Bucky, watching as he reorganizes a stack of files into one of three neat piles before himself. “What’s he doing?” Steve asks. 

“I asked him to sort them by what he remembers doing or happening, what he’s recalls pieces of, and what he remembers nothing of. The biggest pile is the one that he has no recollection of. The smallest one is the things he remembers completely, most of the files come from the last five years or so in that one. Sometimes he’ll go back and put one of the partial-recall folders into the total-recall pile.” Bruce explains.

“How long has he been going this?” He asks, watching as Bucky tosses another folder into the no-recall pile. 

Bruce looks at his watch and drags his hand down his worn looking face. “Since maybe one am?”

Steve gives Bruce a sympathetic look and perches on the arm of his chair. “Go get some rest Bruce.” Steve says. “I can keep an eye on him.” 

The Doctor gives him a thankful look and gets up from his chair, which Steve slides into. Steve watches as he crouches next to Bucky, who doesn’t take his eyes off the file in his hand, and says something softly. Getting no visual to verbal reply, Bruce stands again and leaves the ward, looking exhausted beyond belief. Steve knew how important it was for Banner to get the proper amount of rest, knew that if he didn’t, he risked turning into The Other Guy and putting everyone in the tower in danger. So Steve was more than happy to sit with his friend for a few hours for Bruce could rest. 

Bucky is completely silent as he reads, sometimes shuffling the files and newspaper clippings around, sorting through his own life as if it were someone else’s, as if it were some mystery he needed to solve. He doesn’t look up for what must have been an hour, sighing heavily as he presses in on his eyes with his palms. It’s then that Steve takes note of the dark circles running beneath his friend’s eyes, shadowing the brilliant blue-grey iris that sits above them. “Hey, Buck.” Steve says when those eyes finally turn his way.

Bucky says nothing in reply, just picks up another folder and gets back it work.

“Banner had you down to show you the gym yet? Stark’s got a pretty great set-up going there.” Steve asks, trying to make conversation. 

Once again, Bucky looks up from his file and gives him a blank stare before turning his eyes back to its contents. 

Steve sighs. Alright, so I assume talking is out of the picture here. Steve thinks. 

They delve into uncomfortable silence for what feels like hours. Bucky continues to pour over the files in his lap, and Steve is helpless to do anything other than sit and watch, wishing there was something he could do. It’s late in the afternoon when his phone rings.

“You missed our run this morning, Cap.” Sam’s voice says on the other end before Steve even has the chance to say hello. “Don’t tell me Natasha’s got your old ass all worn out on me.”

Steve laughs, cheeks flushing even though the other can’t see. “Had some more pressing business to attend to.” Steve replies. 

Sam makes an interested noise. “This about your friend?”

“Yeah.” Steve says. “Had to get back to Stark Tower first thing.”

“How’s he doing?” Sam asks. Other than Natasha, Sam was the only person who’d helped Steve search for Bucky in the days following the helicarrier crash. It was Sam who’d suggested that maybe Bucky didn’t want to be found when they’d exhausted all possible options, and that maybe Bucky would come around whenever he was ready. Sam knew all about soldiers dealing with Post Traumatic Stress, and had even offered his help as a councillor when Steve had told him that Bucky was residing at Stark’s place. “Anything coming back?”

Steve gets up from his chair and moves out of earshot of his friend, feeling the piercing blue-grey gaze following him across the room. “He’s getting it back slowly. Banner isn’t sure he’ll get it all, but he is getting some.” Steve explains, watching Bucky turn back to his files. “Bruce said he had a pretty nasty flashback last night though.”

Sam hums, Steve can picture him nodding with that concerned look he gets. “Thats bound to happen with what he’s gone through. But if he ever needs someone to talk to —“ 

“Thats part of the problem here.” Steve sighs. “He’s not talking to anyone. Bruce said he quit talking sometime near one this morning, and he still hasn’t said a word. Just stares.” 

Sam is silent for a minute. “That’s common too.” He replies. “Some people deal with it by talking, some deal with by shutting up. He’ll snap out of it when he’s ready. Anyway, just wanted to make sure you were ok. It isn’t like you to miss a run without letting me know, so I thought I’d check in.”

Steve smiles at that, feeling grateful for having a friend in Sam Wilson, or the Falcon as the rest of the world knew him. He doesn’t patronize Steve like a lot of people do, he just treats Steve like a friend. “Thanks Sam, really. But I’m ok. I should go, check to see if he needs anything.” 

“Five am, sharp. Don’t make me come drag your geriatric ass outta bed.” Sam laughs before hanging up.

Steve sticks his phone back in his pocket and goes back over the where Bucky is sitting, once again reorganizing his stacks of files. He seems content with not saying a word, so Steve resumes his place in the chair that Bruce had vacated, and sits in silence. 

He grows a little more concerned as the days pass by one after another without Bucky speaking. He tries to hide his concern from the rest, but it’s as plain as day on his face. Natasha tells him several times that he needs to relax, and that Bruce is doing the best he can to bring Bucky out of the mute state he’s put himself in. Steve knows that Bucky will snap out of it when he’s good and ready, but he hates that he can’t do anything to help. He hates that he can’t do anything more than sit idly by and hope that one day, Bucky will open up again. 

It takes several weeks and a high dose of a sedative via intravenous drip later to convince the soldier to venture into Tony’s lab to get his arm repaired. The thing had started to malfunction, and eventually quit working all together. Once they get Bucky settled away, Steve leaved Bucky in Tony and Bruce’s care, and makes his way back to the Avengers common room to wait for Tony to let him know once he’s finished. With his mind racing, Steve decides to release his frustration via drawing, taking a relaxed position on one of the couches. He slouches a little, with both his feet kicked up on the coffee table, his sketch book propped up on the couches arm. Nearby Natasha and Sam are playing some video game on the television and otherwise keeping him company. It’s a peaceful afternoon, the sun streaming in through the massive plate-glass window that takes up most of one wall, big fluffy looking clouds rolling by in the blue sky. The clear, blue sky stirs up idle memories within Steve and he sketches the skyline in Brooklyn from his pre-World War II memories. 

Sitting with her feet propped on his lap, Natasha looks over at Steve’s drawing. “You really need to get some of these printed; you could make a fortune selling paintings.”

Sam cranes his neck to see and lets out a low whistle. “Damn, Cap. That looks amazing.” 

Steve blushes and smiles, flipping the sketch book closed to watch the next round of the game the two are playing. “Can someone explain to me, why the princess in the pink dress is throwing turtle shells whenever she drives past the plumber?” He asks, watching as the little avatars on the screen speed down a fantastic looking raceway, hurling objects at one another as they drive. 

Natasha curls her lip into a snarl as she mashes a button on the controller in her hand, making the pink princess launch another shell at the plumber in green that Sam controls. The little car the plumber is driving spins out of control and Natasha’s character speeds past in her chariot. “For that reason!” She laughs as Sam groans. Steve shakes his head and rolls his eyes. I’ll never understand their fascination with these things. He thinks to himself.

But the peaceful feeling is soon disturbed when Nick Fury storms into the common room, followed closely by three agents of his own. All of them are tall and broad, dressed entirely in black and carrying weapons. Steve gets to his feet, knowing already why Fury is here. “What in the hell do you think you’re doing, withholding information from S.H.I.E.L.D, Rogers? Not just information, but the motherfuckin’ Winter Soldier himself! Where is he?”

“You need to leave.” Steve all but growls. His hands ball into fists, clenching at his sides as he glares the agent down.

“With all due respect, Captain,” Fury says with a stern tone. “But you need to stand down hand The Soldier over. Immediately.” 

Steve shakes his head. “Not on your life.“ 

Fury fixes Steve with a glare. “Rogers, this man is a danger to everyone in this building. He shot me. He tried to kill you at least three times. God only knows how many lives he’s taken over the seventy years he’s been working with Hydra.”

“For.” Steve corrects through a snarl. “He was not been working with anyone for a very long time. The things he did weren’t his own choice, Nick. He had to do them. He was being forced.”

“This isn’t the man you knew.” Fury says. “Sergeant James Barnes is dead. The man you have here is not your friend anymore. He’s a hardened killer, a weapon of mass destruction. You don’t know that he’s not still working for Hydra, waiting for the perfect moment to bring down the tower and all of us along with it. We need to put him away.”

“He turned himself in.” Steve says. “Would someone working for Hydra willingly come to Stark Tower, knowing that the majority of the Avengers live here, and could easily take him down?”

Fury shrugs. “You don’t think that this whole thing could be a ruse? A plot to get closer to you so he can finish the job he was given?”

“Pierce is dead, Nick! His handlers are gone! Who the hell would he even have to repot to!? We already put the rest of Hydra down, Bucky has no one left to serve.” Steve argues. “I won’t let you take him hostage, just to treat him like they did. He’s still a person. He’s still my friend.”

The sound of the common room doors sliding shut are the only thing that tears Steve’s eyes off Fury. Bucky stands beside Bruce, looking worn and defeated as always, but as his eyes land on Nick, his back stiffens and he straightens up. Fear replaces defeat, and after that, they cloud over with something that Steve only remembers seeing on the helicarrier. His now repaired arm whirrs and clinks as his hand balls into a fist, and he fixes Fury with a glare that should have left him dead on the floor. Steve has a feeling that if Banner wasn’t holding onto Bucky’s right arm, talking to him in hushed tones, that the soldier would already be strangling the life from Fury and his men.

“See?” Nick says, waving his hand towards Bucky. “He’s still a fucking killer! Look at him!!”

“Fuck you, Nick.” Steve spits, taking a step closer to the agent. “You have no idea what he’s been through!”

Fury scoffs and shakes his head. “Yeah, and I’m sure YOU do.”

“How in the hell did you even find us anyway?” Steve says, trying to keep his volume and tone calm to keep from agitating Bucky any further.

“You don’t really have a lot of options when it comes to hiding a killer. If you didn’t bring him to S.H.I.E.L.D, and he wasn’t at your apartment...” He shrugs. “And it seems like my hunch was correct.” Fury explains casually, though his eyes never leave Bucky.

Natasha hops over the back of the couch, worming her way between Nick and Steve, hazel eyes watching them both closely for the first sign of violence. “What seems to be the issue here?” She says cooly, doing her best to keep the two out of arms reach from one another.

“Your boyfriend here is harbouring a fugitive from S.H.I.E.L.D custody. And I suggest he turns the Soldier in unless he faces the consequences.”

“Are you threatening me, Nick?” Steve asks, tone cool as he pushed past Natasha and looms over Fury, who looks up at him with a defiant gaze. 

“Fellas, woah. Calm down.” Bruce is saying, his hand still on Bucky’s arm, Bucky still looking like he wants to snap Nick in half. “Stop the fighting right now, or I’m going to get really mad. Nick, I can assure you that James is no danger to us anymore, if that’s what your concern is. The drugs Hydra gave him have worked themselves out of his system, and he’s under twenty-four hour surveillance while in his ward. I’m here, Cap’s here, Stark is here… He is under control.”

Silence falls over the room, and tension seeps through the air thick enough to cut with a knife. Steve’s hands are clenched so tightly at his sides that his nails are digging into his palms, drawing blood to the surface. Natasha and Tony are both poised to spring into action the second things turn, and Bruce is doing his best to keep Bucky calm. Steve can see from here that his friend’s pulse has nearly doubled in speed and his chest rises and falls heavily.

Fury isn’t even looking at Bruce at he speaks, his single eye trained only on Bucky, who is staring right back. “Fine.” Fury spits after a minute of silence. “But if I hear of one solitary incident involving that motherfucker, I swear, he’s going right to a cell in S.H.I.E.L.D Headquarters. Understood?” 

No one makes a move until Nick and his guards leave the room, shoving past Bucky on their way out. Bruce says something to Bucky too quietly for Steve to hear, and Bucky nods before they too leave the room, heading back to the private rooms in the medical ward once more. Steve is on edge, fuming from the confrontation with Fury. He hadn’t trusted the man when they first met, and it had been on good instinct. Everything Fury did seemed to have an ulterior motive. The last thing Steve was going to do was pass Bucky off to someone like that, someone who was just as likely to use him as Hydra had, only for a different purpose. 

“Steve?” Natasha asks, pressing a hand against his chest. He looks down at her, his jaw set in a tight line. “Are you ok?”

“I need to hit something.” Steve mutters before pushing past her. He heads to the gym level, two floors down and changes into the sweat pants and fitted S.H.I.E.L.D t-shirt he keeps in a locker there. As he’s wrapping his hands, Natasha enters the room, watching him silently as she leans against a support pillar near the punching bags. “I’m fine, Nat.” Steve says lowly, throwing a quick three jab combo at the bag.

She fixes him with a look Steve knows well, one that she often gave him before. The ‘Don’t-Lie-To-Me-Rogers-I-Know-You-Aren’t-Ok’ look. “You know that you can talk to me, right? I’m here for more than just…” She flashes him that smile that she knows drives him crazy, and Steve can’t help but smirk in return. 

Steve sighs and hits the bag a few more times. “All I want to do is help.” Steve says. “But he won't talk to me, especially now that he’s... In whatever state he's in. It’s like he doesn’t know me.”

“He does.” Natasha assures him. Steve quirks an eyebrow at her. “Banner had me sit in on some of his earlier sessions, when he wasn’t really speaking much in english. James knows you, he remembers a lot about you. More than he does about himself. But,” She bits down on her lip to cut off her sentence and sticks her hands in the pockets of her dark denim jeans, eyes looking down to her feet.

“But, what?” Steve asks, putting more weight and speed into his punches. 

Natasha shrugs. “I shouldn’t…” 

Steve catches the swinging bag and fixes her with a stare. “You brought it up, so now you have to finish it.”

She sighs and comes closer to where he stands, and presses a finger to where his tattoo resides on his chest, right over the point where Bucky’s name sits over his heart. “He hardly remembered being the man you knew him as at first, and as the memories started coming back and mixed in with the ones of the things he’d done for Hydra…” Her eye stare at the point on his chest, fingers tracing the lines of the tattoo through his shirt. She’d seen it enough in the past few months to know every single line, every drop of ink that colours his skin. “He’s mad at himself, Steve. He hates the things he did, hates himself for doing them. James feels like he doesn’t deserve to be in your presence anymore, because you’re so insufferably just and good, and he’s… Well, not. He doesn’t want to taint your memory of what he was with who he is now.”

“And he told you all this?” Steve scoffs, stepping back from her as she nods to confirm it, leaving Steve with a single word follow up question: “When?”

“A few weeks ago, before he clammed up.” She confesses, moving back over to where she’d been watching him from before. “We talked, from time to time.” Steve glares her down again and she holds up her hands. “It’s the Red Room thing. I told you about all that, remember?”

He does. After Steve had brought Bucky to the tower, he’d called Natasha to let her know that The Winter Soldier was in his custody, and that she didn’t have to worry anymore. She’d rushed back from Austria that night and demanded to get a look at the man who had shot her, shot Nick and tried to kill Steve a number of times. Her face had dropped from anger to pity when she saw Bucky lying strapped down to a bed in the medical ward, and had almost dissolved into tears. When Steve had asked what was wrong, she’d told him that back when she’d been in training for The Red Room, that Bucky had been one of the agents that had trained her in. She’d taken a liking to him, and he’d doted on her in return. For a brief time, there was something between them before the higher-ups had taken Bucky away from her. She never saw him again, and presumed he’d been killed as punishment for fraternizing with the new blood. 

Despite all that happening a number of years before, Steve still cant help but be a little jealous of it all. “Right.” He says lowly. 

“I can’t help it if I understand what he’s going through to some extent.” She snaps. 

Steve lands a blow at the punching bag with such force that its chain snaps and it flies across the room. His chest heaves as he breath deep, trying to calm himself. “Still would have been nice to know these things. Thanks, Nat. Really. You’re a huge fucking help.” He says spitefully before stalking away from her and into the shower room to cool off. 

He doesn’t mean to take his anger out on her. He doesn’t even like to curse, and hates it when people swear around women. But his emotions are to the boiling point. Ever since he’d heard that Bucky was alive, all he wanted was to make sure that Bucky was ok. He wanted to take care of his friend like Bucky had done for him a thousand times before. But now that he was here, Bucky didn’t even want to be near him, and it hurt. It hurt being kept at arms length like that. And just knowing that Bucky had been willing to open up to Natasha more than him was just another nail in the coffin. 

He turns the water on in the shower and cranks it up to a pleasant heat before stripping down and standing under the spray, both hands braced against the tile walls. He lets the water sooth him, the steady sound of it splashing off the tiles helping him calm even more. Steve inhales the stem, exhales the anger, feels it leave his body.

A hand sliding from the small of his back up to his shoulder distracts him from his silent meditation. Steve peers over his shoulder to see Natasha standing behind him, stripped naked, skin flushed from the heat of the shower. She ducks under his arm and presses her hands to the sides of his face. “It’s going to be ok, Steve.” She assures him. “Everything will all work out in the end.” Natasha reached up on tiptoes and presses her lips to his, and Steve can’t resist. His arms wrap around her as he kisses back, pulling her body against his. 

The days seemed to meld into one after that night. Steve had finally moved into Stark Tower, to the spacious living quarters Tony had generously allowed him to occupy; Bucky stayed mute and Steve saw less and less of Natasha. With his files sorted and nothing moving into the total-recall pile, Bucky had lapsed into stasis. He spent his days staring at the walls, his bed, the floor or anything else to avoid sustained eye contact with Steve, Bruce or any other visitor. With such minimal progress and little else Bruce could do, it was decided to let Bucky move in with Steve in his new accommodations. 

If nothing else, it would get Bucky out of the high tension medical ward and into a more tranquil environment, one where he could relax. There was still around the clock supervision, even when Steve was elsewhere there was always someone within the Avengers fold willing to watch the broken soldier. However, Bucky was given his space, preferring to spend his time alone in his room, with the door locked tight. Even when coaxed into coming out for food it was impossible to make any sort of connection with the man above scattered glances. 

Steve spent as much time as he could in his quarters, determined to be there when Bucky finally spoke. Tony and Sam weren’t so sure he ever would, even Natasha seemed skeptical, but Steve knew Bucky better than all of them. They encouraged Steve to get out more, to try living normally, for his sake as well as Bucky’s. Even Bruce, on his daily checkups told Steve “He’ll talk when he’s ready and not a moment sooner Steve. I wish I could give you an estimate, but I can’t. If you sit here and watch him every day you’re only going to stress the both of you out.” Bruce had all but forced Steve to leave the apartments, and Natasha had helped, taking him out on the town twice over the past week.

She slept in his bed most nights too, but was always gone by morning. Steve felt he was to blame, feeling as if he was ignoring her for Bucky, though she never said as much. It’s a week to the day since Fury had visited and late into the night when Steve feels Natasha’s warmth leaving his arms, and hears her moving about his new room on his new floor in Stark Tower. He knows that she’s getting dressed, that she’s getting ready to leave. “Come back to bed.” Steve mutters into his pillow, stretching his arms out in a way that makes him feel kind of like a cat. “You don’t need to leave every night just because Bucky is living here.” 

He hears her deflated sigh in the dark. “You know I can’t stay, Steve.” She replies, her voice quiet. “I can’t sleep with someone else in my bed. Makes me restless.” She’s shimmying into her jeans, feet slipping into her shoes.

Steve knows thats a lie. She’d slept just fine the first time this had happened, wrapped up in his arms, head on his chest. She’d slept just fine in the weeks that followed too. But now, she always left in the dead of night when she thought he’d fallen asleep. Most times he wasn’t, and he’d watch her dress and leave in silence, not even a kiss good-bye. It hurt a bit, if he were being honest. But he’d never mention it to her, he didn’t know how. So he just sighs and turns onto his other side as she leaves the room. 

The elevator door slides shut in the living area and she’s gone. Steve sits up and rummages around his floor looking for his boxers and pyjama pants. He finds both and puts them on before going into the living room. 

Times like this, he can’t sleep. He hates sleeping alone, always has. Back when he was still a fraction of his current self, back when he lived with Bucky in Brooklyn in that shabby, one bedroom apartment, they’d had to share a bed. Bucky had always been a cuddler, not that he ever would have admitted it. Most mornings Steve would wake up with Bucky pressed tight to his back, and a big, strong arm wrapped around his tiny body. He never cared because he was so damn cold all the time, and Bucky’s skin always ran hot. And in the winter it always helped, because their furnace never worked right and it was the only way to keep warm when the winds howled and heavy, wet snow lashed against the bedroom window. He’d grown so used to the presence of another person in his bed over the years that having to spend his nights alone now was hard. Steve could never get comfortable anymore, especially on these new, extra soft mattresses. 

Times like this he wished he’d stayed in that shitty apartment, on that lumpy mattress and waited for Bucky to come home. Hell, if it wasn’t for Steve’s idiocy, Bucky never would have been near that train. Then again, if it wasn’t for Steve’s idiocy, Bucky would have likely never been found in that Hydra base to begin with, and he would have just gotten a letter of condolence and a neatly folded American flag as Bucky’s next-of-kin. He sighs again.

He sits in the living room, only one lamp turned on beside the couch with his sketch book in his lap, and the iPod that Natasha had filled with music she thinks he’d like plugged into his ears. He sketches for a while, letting his drawings be dictated by the songs he listens to. The man singing has a soft, haunting voice as he sings about a girl he can’t seem to have. His pencil sketches the form of a woman in jeans with hair tumbling down her bare back in soft curls, cowboy boot clad feet kicking up sand and dirt as she walks away from the viewer, a cowboys hat in her hand. Steve frowns at the drawing and changes the song, turning to a new page.

The low, sensual voice of a woman met his ears, singing of a man in blue jeans and a white shirt. Steve smirked as he drew the familiar frame of his friend, only as it had been back before the war, before Hydra. Tall and mostly legs, his body more defined than any eighteen-year-old ought to be. He clothed the figure in a pair of jeans, and a plain white button-down shirt, left undone. The figure’s hand dragged through its hair, and the look on its face was pure seduction. Where did this come from? Steve thinks, quirking an eyebrow as the rough sketch on his page.

Steve gets lost in his series of sketches, and hardly even notices the soft whines and sobs emanating from the guest room that Bucky now occupies. When his ears register the sounds, he tears the headphones off his head and sits quietly, listening in case they turned violent. Steve lays down his sketch book and stands from the couch, moving silently through the hallway and presses a hand against the locked door of his best friend’s bedroom. He’s always hated hearing the way Bucky’s voice breaks as he sobs. Back when they were still just kids, when Bucky’s Ma died Steve sat up with him for days, letting the bigger of the two lie across their threadbare couch with his head in Steve’s lap, crying his heart out over the loss. Even now he sounds the same, and it rips Steve in half. 

It isn’t until those sobs turn to a frightened whimper than Steve gets worried. He’s heard Bucky like this before since he move in. Steve knows he has nightmares, even if Bucky won’t tell him. Steve has them too sometimes, wakes up some mornings with his face streaked with tears and his pillow damp. But never in the week or so that Bucky has been living here has Steve heard that panicked, scared sound leaving his friend’s mouth. Bucky is muttering something in Russian in his sleep and, goddamn it, he was going to make Natasha teach him, because Bucky sounds terrified and Steve doesn’t know why. “Bucky?” Steve calls, rapping his knuckles off the door, hoping that it rips Bucky from the dream. “Buck, you ok?”

But there isn’t a reply, just the sound of someone thrashing around in a bed, and a lamp crashing to the ground. 

Steve knows he can break the door down. He knows that one well-placed shove of his shoulder will knock the thing from it’s hinges and allow him access. Bruce had told Steve that Bucky was going to need space, privacy, time alone to get reacquainted with himself and his mind. And so far, Steve had respected that space, letting Bucky have all the privacy he could in the shared space. He always knocked before he opened the door, and never went inside when Bucky was at a session with Sam’s PTSD help group. But now, Bucky needs him, and the door is locked tight. He knows Bucky will be mad with Steve for invading his privacy, but… 

Steve presses a still naked shoulder against the cool paint of the door and gives it one, two, three rough shoves before it gives way, swinging open. Bucky is on his back, his metal hand gripping the sheets, pulling at them. He’s coated in sweat, and his lip is bloody from where his teeth have bitten at it too many times. Bucky is still whimpering, and it’s a horrible, scared sound that Steve hates more the more he hears it. His head thrashes from side to side and he starts hyperventilating, his breaths coming in shallow and too short to fill those lungs. “Steve…” He whispers. There are tears rolling down his face, and it rips Steve open, and his heart drops through the floor. “Steve!” He says again, voice getting a little louder. 

I’m here, Buck. I’m right here. Steve thinks, kneeling beside the bed, waiting for the nightmare to end and for Bucky to come to. Just wake up. C’mon Buck, wake up and it’ll all be over.

“STEVE!” Bucky all but screams, throwing himself upright, a flail of arms and legs and bed sheets. His eyes are wide and huge and terrified, and his chest heaves as he gasps for air. He looks around the room, lit only by the light coming in from the hallway, and lets his gaze fall on Steve. His eyes are filled with tears and they spill down his face. “Steve.” He says again, as if just the name would quell the panic in him. 

“I’m right here, pal.” Steve tells him, putting a hand on Bucky’s right arm, so he can feel the touch, so he can be grounded to reality by it. “I’m not going anywhere.” Bucky slides from the bed and sits beside Steve in a heap of sheets and pyjama pants and tangled hair, then lets himself fall forward into Steve’s arms. He buries his face into Steve’s shoulder as his body is wracked with silent sobs, whispering Steve’s name over and over as he clings tight. Steve winds his arms around Bucky, enveloping him completely, one hand resting on the back of his head. “It’s ok, Buck. I’m ok.” Bucky is shivering against him, weather it’s because he’s cold or upset Steve has no idea, but he keeps him close. “Talk to me. Tell me what’s wrong.” Bucky's tears fall hot on Steve's shoulder and roll down his skin, and again his heart rips itself into shreds. 

Bucky breaths heavy against his skin, both hands holding onto Steve like he’s going to disappear if he lets go. “They were going to take you away again.” Bucky murmurs against Steve’s shoulder. “Only this time they had you captive. Made me put a gun to your head. Pierce was pissed because I didn’t finish you off on the bridge. Said that I had to do it now, or they’d kill us both. But I couldn’t to it because I remembered… I remembered and I couldn’t kill you because you’re my friend.” He shivers uncontrollably. “So they took my gun and strapped me down like they do every time they want a blank slate, but this time they don’t start the machine. One of ‘em shoves you to the floor in front of me and puts the gun to your head and —“ Bucky takes a stuttering breath and Steve tugs him closer. 

It hardly registers in Steve’s mind that this is the first time Bucky has spoken in nearly a full month, and when it does, Steve feels his own eyes brim with tears.

“It was just a dream, Buck.” Steve tells him, shifting so he can get his back against the bed frame. “They can seem pretty real, but they aren’t.” He swallows thickly, trying to make the lump in his throat go away. He isn’t used to seeing Bucky so broken, so raw. And it’s the worst, most heartbreaking thing he’d ever laid eyes on. “It’s gonna be ok, pal. I’ve got you.” His hand gently rubs across the broad expanse of Bucky’s back comfortingly, the whole while his heart aching. Bucky can’t seem to get a hold of himself, and Steve doesn’t care. He’ll sit there the entire night if thats what Bucky needs. He’d sit there until the end of the world.